As part of the summer improvements, you'll find a Hawk Digest Feedback module on the left. It's a feed of all of the most recent comments made on Hawk Digest stories. If you want to be famous, just push the comments link on any recent article and type away.
In the future, the old forum will be resurrected and topics and threads from that tool will also feed into the same area. Final summation: get ready to talk Kansas Jayhawk football.
Florida State President Tells It Like It Is | FSU president T.K. Wetherell laid it all out at the National Football Forum in Grapevine, Texas last week. He called a playoff inevitable and spoke pretty bluntly about what it will come down to -- money. Also, should note that Mark Mangino was on hand for this meeting. Here's an excerpt:
According to Wetherell, schools are happy to stick with the status quo because budgets are padded with money from the 12th game, which was added for the 2006 season.
“We’ll spend all that money. We’re not going to bank it,” Wetherell said. “Then the question will be, `Where do I get me more money?”’
A playoff will be the logical alternative, Wetherell said.
“And the fight won’t be over whether we do it or not anymore,” he said during a break following the session. “The fight’s going to be on the split. It’s going to be a totally different discussion.”
Texas Fans Analyze Mack | There's a massive piece this a.m. from Burnt Orange Nation on Mack Brown. Since they're on the schedule this year and we pretty much always have to keep an eye on the massive beast from the south anyway, it's good to check in and understand what UT fans are thinking. My take from the distant north on Mack Brown and Texas -- yes, he starts from a conservative base, but the big key is that it takes a special kind of coach to organize talent. The kind of talent that UT brings in comes with a lot of individual egos with individual goals. Getting those guys to function as single-minded unit, live and die together for school pride presents a different kind of challenge. A lot of the success KU had last year had to with a buy-in to the concept that if they don't play as a team -- they lose. It'll be interesting to watch Nebraska over the next few years as they consciously move away from talent only type players to more of "school pride" mentality type mix of athletes.
More Reports on Track Removal | A thread on the huddle indicating 42k in season tickets sold sparked a whole lot of message board chatter the track removal. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a desire to lower the field to increase the field visibility from the first few rows. In addition, moving the field north closer to the bowl is in the talks as well, but there is the issue of re-ordering the suite holders. Anyway, no further verification on the 42,000 number, but if true, that obviously means a full year of sellouts and this would be the exact right time to have this conversation.
Bonus: Fans Play Architect | Thought I'd go ahead and post a couple of the fan mock-ups of future Memorial Stadium. Both are from the gridiron board. The first one from Brocktoon23 is pretty much my dream vision of Memorial, except for expanding the bowl to full capacity, which you can see in version #2 from ACforPREZ. I prefer the separate structure for the south stands. There's something very pure and clean about the architecture of Memorial as it stands now. So, I'm also opposed to squaring the north bowl -- besides the massive expensive to re-build from scratch, I think you'd lose that coliseum feel.
Brocktoon23 Plan
ACforPREZ Plan
Ryan Wood just put up his best post ever on his Sawin' Wood blog. Some of the most revealing quotes I've seen in print from Mark Mangino. Excerpt from Mangino regarding the 2004 Texas postgame:
"Well, the way I approached it, first of all, is I had a reason to do it," Mangino said. "My reasons are such that we had lost some difficult ballgames that year, and our kids after that game were just crushed. I had never been around a team that had been so disheartened about a loss.
"So I just warned people, some administrators on my way to the pressroom, what I was going to do, and it was to save the team. I knew I was going to get criticism for it and take some bullets, but Kansas hadn't had a winning program for many years, we were trying to get it on its feet, we were getting close but just couldn't get over the hump. So I took a bullet for it.
"But I do understand that that's not the way to do it. I learned a lesson that there's other ways to get that done. But at the time I felt that was the best way to do it."
Attention NFL Teams | Hardworking, never say die fullback available. KUsports.com reports that the St. Louis Rams are passing on Brandon McAnderson. Mistake. Watching this guy tough it out in our program for five years to put up the senior season that he had -- well that's the kind of attitude some of these pro teams could use.
It's Conference Preview Season | Another Big 12 preview from New Era Scouting. This one is light on words and heavy on the rankings -- which is kind of nice. The theme continues though -- now that KU has to play Texas and OU the world is ending. We had a few players on the first team (Joe Mortensen and Justin Thornton) and a few on the second team (Jake Sharp and Dexton Fields). This story was tipped by the hardest working Big 12 Blog this offseason -- Double T Nation.
Kansas Football Select-A-Seat Swag | Item #2 is the new poster made available (below) at Select-A-Seat. The "We're Just Getting Started" theme for the season suits me just fine.
Select-A-Seat provided the opportunity to get a fresh look at the progress on the facilities. That's one tall tower. Should always have a good view of practice from the street. The new grass on the hill is helping things come together.
Select-A-Seat Swag #1: Pocket Schedule
The fantastic, season ticket distributor that slices, dices and organizes your life and takes the season ticket holder feeling out of being a season ticket holder. The Veg-O-Matic of the new century. But wait, there's more ... act now and you can Select Your Border War seats for $120. That's a mere $.30 per day. Get in now on the process that moves you farther from the 50 each year, but builds champions.
I thought they were moving this to every two years. Anyway, my Select-A-Seat story is a good one. I was a little late, but they whisked me in. Actually, I moved up a couple of rows and ended up with a much better situation than last year, simply by crossing an aisle (probably 4' further from the 50 yard line). So, I'm walking around with a smile, but I fielded a few profanity laced phone calls regarding, "we give more money, yet our seats get worse." The answer is simple -- you're not giving enough.
For the record, at 6:20 p.m. on Wednesday evening the West side was moving into Section 9.
Where I'll be on Saturday's next fall:
NCAA 2009 | The game is set for a July 15 release. Nice to see the new numbers and the alternate jersey. Is that Bradley Dedeaux? Also, not sure that I'll make the purchase this season due to the omission of Aqib Talib as a cover man.
KU Color History | Please read this and summarize for me: http://www.kuhistory.com/proto/story.asp?id=32
John Brown-The Huddle | One of things you can count on in life is John Brown spreading the word about Mizzou on the KUsports.com Huddle message board. Tune in daily:
"I was outside enjoying the day and just thinking of that passage. We must always remember that as Jayhawkers our goal is not merely to win football games and play in bowls. More importantly, it is to kick the living crap outta Missoura. Period.Ya'll may be of the opinion last year was fine. 12 and 1. Orange Bowl win. That was great. That being said, I'm for getting it back together for another shot at the Slavers. All that matters in my opinion."
ESPN Poll | Who will win the North? KU got zero votes in Alaska in case you were wondering: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=ncf&pollId=55374
ESPN North Summary | A pretty in-depth look at all six programs for May: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3392045
Meanwhile in Manhattan | As Wefald exits, they are claiming that the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has already been turned on.
It depends on your perspective. I'm a West side man myself, but we've moved back and forth over the years. The key is you need to be above row 14 and between the 10s. If you do that, you're going to have a good view of the game. As for East vs West, here is the rundown:
WEST
EAST
KU linebacker Joe Mortensen was one of 88 players named to the watch list for the Bronko Nagurski Award. The award is given annually to the best defensive player in the nation by the Football Writers Association of America. Big 12 players that made the list include:
Ian Campbell, DE, Kansas State
Auston English, DE, Oklahoma
Nic Harris, DB, Oklahoma
George Hypolite, DT, Colorado
William Moore, S, Missouri
Joe Mortensen, LB, Kansas
Sean Weatherspoon, LB, Missouri
Facilities Pix From Phog.net | BMWJayhawk posted a great set of updated facility photos on the gridiron board at Phog.net. I think the high shot showing the new turf for the practice fields gives a great view of the area. Definitely disappointed to see a chain link fence around the fields, but I'm not sure what else could go around it. Besides I think my personal campaign against chain links is getting a little old.
Nick Saban - Recruiting By Webcam | Nick is always looking for an edge. Excerpt from the Yahoo article:
"Even before the new rule, coaches weren’t allowed to have more than brief, inadvertent contact with recruits during the spring, a rule Saban was accused of breaking last year in Miami. He has called the new restrictions against visits to high schools “ridiculous.”
When they went into effect, he turned to Plan B: Web cams, which are permitted by the NCAA."
SB Nation Redesigns | Thankfully the SBNation network of sports blogs appears to be implementing a redesign. Looks like burntorangenation.com is among the first to get the new look. The menu bar is a little "WordPressy," but the look is a welcome improvement. Hawkdigest could have been SB Nation blog. I actually spent quite a bit of time researching all of the platforms before deciding on Squarespace. SB Nation offers pretty much a ready-made audience, so it was tempting, but I just couldn't get into that look (old SB design: rockchalktalk.com, cornnation.com). By the way, Squarespace has worked so well for me, I build all of my new sites with the platform. Flexible and deep.
I thought I'd post this link to the KU offer letter sent to four-star QB recruit Robert "Tate" Forcier. I'm not sure about you guys, but I never actually received one of these during my high school career.
Also, if you are a current recruit looking for a school, you better check out his website: http://www.qbforce.com/tate/home.htm
If you don't have a website, you may be in trouble. Don't worry, WordPress, Blogger, FaceBook, Ning and MySpace all have free options.
DJ Goodwin
